One-On-One with Notre Dame’s Mendoza College Of Business

In today’s featured One-On-One with Poets&Quants’ John A. Byrne, hear from Associate Dean Jeffrey Bergstrand about Mendoza’s accelerated, one-year and traditional MBA options, immersive programs and mentoring at the University of Notre Dame’s Mendoza College of Business in beautiful South Bend, Indiana.

This Poets&Quants video was produced in partnership with Potential SF.

I highly recommend prospective MBA students to gather all of the facts and conduct extensive research before choosing a MBA program. In my case, I made the mistake of choosing the Notre Dame MBA. By selecting the ND MBA program, I have greatly derailed my career prospects. Below are the factors that led me to this conclusion:

1) Lack of Quality Employers- The administration states that the Notre Dame MBA is a high caliber program, ranked along with the other elite MBA programs. However, the program does not attract the high-quality employers that are associated with a top-tier program. For example, the MBA program attracts very few capital markets firms (private equity, investment bank, asset management), start-ups, corporate development or top consulting firms. A few capital markets firms and consulting firms state that they are “core” employers of the school, but these firms do not come and recruit students on a regular basis. As a result, this led my classmates and I to apply to jobs on LinkedIn and other career websites which defeats the primary value-add of a MBA program: to promote on-campus recruiting.

2) Lack of Alumni Network- The admissions and career development counselors stress the “strength of the alumni network.” This is a complete lie. The strength of the network resides at the undergraduate level and NOT the MBA level. When I entered the program, I assumed that the undergraduate alumni network would be willing to help the MBAs network with firms. This is not true. The undergraduates don’t identify with the MBA program and since the MBA program is relatively new, with a small class size, the MBA alumni network is small. It is a shame as high-quality firms travel to South Bend and recruit the undergraduates. However, there is no cross-over to the MBA level.

3) Ineffective Career Staff/Dean- The career staff and the dean are completely incompetent and are unwilling to recognize any problems. Many of my classmates had been very vocal about the need to change the quality of the program, specifically in regards to the two points I mentioned above. Early on, I quickly realized that meeting with the career staff is a complete waste of time. The Dean and Associate Dean are aware of the numerous career development issues, but both men are unwilling to fix the problems. I remember having a conversation with the head of the career center and telling her that the school has a problem as my class was about to graduate and only 60% of the students had received full-time job offers and only 50% of those students had accepted the offer. She said that it’s a tough economy and that other “top” schools are experiencing the same numbers. I called friends at other “top” schools and there rates were 90%+.

4) MBAs unwilling to help-

There are a few alums who have risen to positions of power. However, I know when my classmates and I attempted to network with these people, they were not receptive to helping us network with people in the industry.